Beelzebub
by failtopale
Summary: A LOTF Fanfic. What if Ralph had not rushed the line? What if these boys were not rescued until after the war? What if the constant clash between order and savagery meant so, so much more? The story continues in an alternate, "what if" ending.
1. Teaser: Fire in the Forest

**Beelzebub**

A Work of Fanfiction | Ralph x Jack

FailtoPale

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><p><em>Foreword: This work starts off near the end of the book where Ralph is hiding in a small, dirt hole away from the tribe that is pursuing him. The plot twists off from there, and these boys don't get rescued until a few years later, when the adult world around them has finished World War II and has discovered the island which they reside in. It's not really a sequel, it's more of an alternate universe, a "what if" kind of thing. Therefore, I will be quoting some of the book in the beginning.<em>

_Warnings: When I started planning this out, I felt a little weird shipping a bunch of teenagers or younger. However, the Mature rated stories on this site kinda gave me a sick, little boost (hooray!), but I'm still not going to dive into any smut anytime soon. They need to grow a little riper (and older, I think) before I begin any slash. Just saying. Therefore, the rescue is gonna be put off in this story. Anyways, I'm putting a warning here because it WILL contain some very inappropriate, slightly disturbing ways of acting out slash. There may be some cussing. Also, there's also the violence, insanity, and demonic suffering that is LOTF._

_Warnings and prefaces aside, let the story begin!_

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><p>The ululation spread from shore to shore. The savage knelt down by the edge of the thicket, and there were lights flickering in the forest behind him. You could see a knee disturb the mold. Now the other.<p>

Two hands. A spear.

A face.

The savage peered into the obscurity beneath the thicket. You could tell that he saw light on this side and on that, but not in the middle-there. In the middle was a blob of dark and the savage wrinkled up his face, trying to decipher the darkness.

The seconds lengthened. Ralph was looking straight into the savage's eyes.

Don't scream.

You'll get back.

Now he's seen you. He's making sure. A stick sharpened.

Ralph nearly screamed; all his senses compelled him to.

Scream.

Scream for all your life. Run out. Break the line. But his body betrayed him, shaking, but rooted into the thicket.

For a moment the savage looked as if he recognized something, but before he could realize that the creature he saw was in fact Ralph, a clump of dirt stirred behind Ralph as a pig clawed past him in a squeal of pain with blood gushing out of a stab wound on its back. It plummeted straight into the savage's face as he stumbled backwards into a tree.

The savage, nearly frightened out of his wits, threw the pig off as a small group of littluns, distracted, broke the line and ran ravenously at the bleeding pig. The savage looked up to see Roger, who silently smiled as he jabbed his spear downwards into the thicket a few more times.

The pig had broken Ralph's fear spell and he began to think more clearly. He saw the spear forcefully thrust into the thicket a few times and decided to wait a little before he crawled into the space where the pig had come from. After nestling out of view, he saw the previous savage check the hole again before reforming the line with Roger and the littluns, who were unsuccessful with their hunt.

He watched them as their frail, nerve-wracked bodies disappeared further into the forest.

Time slowly ticked away as Ralph hid in his hole, hoping that they were far enough away. Even though the flies were filling his view and the ants were crawling on his skin, he didn't budge until he could no longer hear the ululations of the savages.

Slowly and silently, Ralph crawled out of the thicket, careful not to disturb anything or leave any trails. He hurriedly tiptoed in the opposite direction where the line was sweeping and soon found himself at the walls of the fort, the only structure on the island that wasn't shrouded in terrible flames. Yet it seemed that the crags on the fort themselves formed the shape of a flame, a large, dark flame that held the souls of the children, the biguns and the littluns, the sow, Piggy and Simon.

The fort was the last place Ralph wanted to be near, especially since the tribe was inevitably going to return there. He routed around it and found himself at a small clearing outside the forest, near the site that Simon was...accidentally murdered. There, the ground bore a stick sharpened at both ends with a bloodied tip, and a fleshy mess of blood and glistening brains strew around on the ground. Flies surrounded the remains of a pig's head, smothering the atmosphere with a loud, droning buzz.

A stick sharpened at both ends.

Sam and Eric.

It was a site of sacrifice, a place of offering to this beastie, a gift in exchange for peace. And the stick that jutted out of the ground had been cleared as a new throne for Ralph's head to rest.

The sight invoked a sudden shiver that tore through Ralph's body as all his muscles involuntarily clenched. He crumpled down to his knees as he lurched, spewing whatever was left in his empty stomach.

Whatever this was, this place told him how he was going to die.

He lied there face-first, semi-conscious for a while, and then climbed back onto his feet from the dirt patch he was lying on. He leaned on a tree, trying to clear the dark spots in his vision when-

"Kill the pig! Slit her throat! Bash her in!"

He looked up in the direction the voices came from. It was that all too familiar rhythm again.

"Kill the pig! Slit her throat! Bash her in!"

It was getting closer.

"Kill the pig! Slit her throat! Bash her in!"

Closer.

"Kill the pig! Slit her throat! _Bash her in!_"

Closer!

Ralph dashed past the stick in the ground, temporarily dispersing the cloud of flies as he neared the crags that Piggy had tumbled down on. Before he nearly followed the same fate, Ralph quickly stopped himself and fell backwards on his rear.

"_Kill the pig! Slit her throat! Bash her in!"_

In that flickering moment, Ralph only wanted to distance himself from the tribe. He only wanted to hide. To survive.

He tripped forward and brutally stumbled down the hill. The dry weeds and sharp pebbles tore up his skin as he yelped in bouts of both pain and surprise.

The only thing that prevented Ralph ending up like Piggy was his reaction. He quickly snared at a ledge, but it was slippery with something red. It broke his fall a little before he thumped down onto a hard slab of rock. There was the faint sensation of himself weakly climbing up to a higher ledge out of the water.

That was the last thing Ralph could remember for several hours.

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><p>Jack paced briskly in front, his face a scarlet red because he was empty-handed. The littluns behind him chanted in happy ignorance, carrying a freshly killed hog tied to a stake.<p>

"Sucks to Ralph," he muttered bitterly.

That evening when the littluns were giggling and devouring their meat, Jack found himself wanting to go and find Ralph on his own. But there was the beastie lurking out at night, and wasn't as if he could see batshit in the dark.

Oh, right, the beastie.

Jack reached for his knife when he saw Roger already picking away at the carcass' neck. Roger gave him a cold but smiling glance as he hung the head on the sharpened stick. Jack scowled and looked around at the faces of the littluns, who were watching him in surprise.

"I swear, I'll kill him. Next time, I swear I will!"

Jack growled at them, throwing his knife to the ground and looking around for those who dared to challenge him. Roger nodded at him and spoke quietly.

"Yes. We will have his head."

That night, no one slept well except for Ralph, who was out cold.

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><p>Ralph woke up to the succulent smell of meat , and his mouth dribbled. The smell didn't last long, however, and slowly faded to the burnt aroma of a dying fire. He tried to pick his tired body up to a sitting position, but failed when an aching headache hit his sore head. So instead, he rolled over and tried to haul himself up by grabbing onto a ledge. His hand left a print, and he saw that the red stain was not his own, but Piggy's stale blood, most of which had washed away.<p>

Lying there, it was at that moment Ralph could have sworn he lost his sanity.

The cold truth had hit him; the cold truth that he was alone, that he was powerless, that he was dying. It had been following him all along, and it had finally caught up to him. His wounded body shivered and spasmed as he curled into a tight ball and wept.

He wept for the loss of a true friend named Piggy.

He wept for the darkness of humanity's soul.

He wept for the purity that was forever gone.

And the skinny skeleton shook as it shed tears for the corpulent corpse.

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><p><em>Thanks for reading!<em>

_This chapter was actually a teaser for the fanfic; if it gains enough popularity I'll definitely start updating regularly._

_So, if you liked this chapter so far, PLEASE review! Even one will get me off my lazy butt and start committing myself to this darn story. Whee-aa-oo! :D_


	2. Chapter 1: Hunters and Spears

_Alrighty, the official 1st chapter is here!_

_Warnings: There's no slash or anything yet, but there are some disturbing Roger moments. They're not the slash type of disturbing, but it's... uh... the Roger's-violence type of disturbing. Heehee! I feel kinda guilty for writing this kinda stuff, but I got it out! Anyhow, the story's just moving forward a bit. Also, I make a biblical reference that characterizes the island as forever tainted. If you're offended by this kind of stuff, then I'm just telling you right here._

_Other stuff: I try to keep some of the meaning consistent, as well as add on with my own allusions and significance to the story. The interpretation of Jack and Roger as Hitler and the Gestapo (that some tend to see in the story), however, will probably be dumped, since I don't have the personal background that Golding has._

_Anyways, all the characters so far belong to William Golding's brilliance and Lord of the Flies. I don't own them._

_Begin!_

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><p>Jack woke up with an exciting energy inside him. He was overenthusiastic and immediately began to prepare for his bounty hunt. He sat up and leaped off the crag he was sleeping on and headed towards the pile of spears that lay in a corner of the cave. He snatched one and stood in the middle of scattered, sleeping bodies.<p>

"Get your spears! We're going to search for Ralph!"

The bodies of the rest of the tribe that laid on the ground stirred a little. They rose wearily in complaint against Jack's demanding voice, their bodies still worn out from yesterday's search.

A bleary-eyed group of littluns cried out.

"But I'm hungry!"

"I just woke up!"

"Can't we go hunting first?"

Jack's freckles faded a little in an angry blush. He jabbed his spear into the ground.

"We_ are_ hunting! Except we're hunting for Ralph. And we won't get our food until we get _Ralph!_"

In dreary obedience, the boys formed the line again, preparing to sweep the island that had been reduced to a pile of ashes from their riot the day before. Before them was a vast carpet of uneven clumps of black dust that used to be a lively forest. Few trees stood, but the ones that had survived the fire were the tallest and burliest, impeding the view between Castle Rock and the beach.

Jack trudged on in serious determination. His stomach growled occasionally and began to clench in an aching cramp, but he continued to thoroughly scale the forest. His eyes were wide, bloodshot globes that searched the forest of its every detail and movement. Few ululations were heard, and all of them were false alarms, tricks of the wind. There was very little life left in the forest, which boosted Jack's confidence as it had made searching easier. They crossed the sickly patch of green that surrounded the fort. It was the only patch of green on the island, as the flames had not run too near the fort. It was midday before they caught any real movement from something live, and many of the boys were wavering to and fro, about to faint from the lack of the food they neglected in their search the day before.

A small rustle to his right caught his immediate attention as he tightened his grip on his spear. His eyes flickered towards where the movement came from as his body tensed in vigilance. There were audible murmurs that came from a pile of leaves on the ground. Jack made a cupping motion to the others.

"Circle. Make a circle," he whispered.

The littluns, indifferent to the search, shuffled weakly around the rustling pile of leaves.

"Hurry up!"

They surrounded the small pile of leaves with their spears aimed inward. Slowly, they closed into the pile of leaves as Roger hovered outside of the circle, his eyes intent. In his right hand he clutched a spear that had been sharpened with care, while his left held the stick that had been sharpened at both ends.

Jack cried a shrill ululation as the boys rushed into the middle and began stabbing at the pile. Instantly, a squeal was heard as a small group of bleeding piglets scattered outward from a bleeding sow. The piglets stumbled as they ran, their legs not as fully developed as their instincts.

Roger dropped his sticks as he dove for one, grabbing it and holding it upside down by its two lower legs. Instead of slashing its throat, he took out his knife and sliced open its belly, turning a loud squeal into a painfully resounding scream as the contents of the piglet spilled out onto the ashy ground. He tied the piglet to his waist and eagerly joined the circle of littluns who were busy with killing the sow. They were weakly spearing the pig, their arms lacking strength from the hunger that had been plaguing them for so long. Roger picked up his spear again and slowly but firmly pressed onto a swollen teat on the sow, resulting in an agonizing screech from the sow that caused a few littluns to cringe.

Jack dispersed the group, shoving everyone in his way to the side and taking out his knife. He firmly slashed the sow's throat and stood there as the spastic hooves slowly resided and eventually stilled. His teeth were painfully clenched together; his seething breaths were shallow and uneven. His hand firmly clutched the handle that was stained with blood as scarlet as his face. He shouted to a particular no one.

"Why couldn't it have been Ralph? Why couldn't it have been _Ralph?_"

His eyes began to moist as the others simply watched him in silence. Jack pressed his forehead against a trunk and began to wail. It was a wail mixed with rage and frustration, and it resounded across the entire island. Bill and Percival shifted on their feet uncomfortably.

"Let's forget about Ralph."

Jack opened his eyes that were tightly shut before. He cocked his head to face the squeaky, quiet voice that came from Maurice.

"Forget _Ralph?_"

"Yes-I mean-"

"_Ralph?_"

"Uh-chief, I uh-"

"_Ralph?_"

Jack approached Maurice and leaned over him. Maurice's eyes were wide and tense in a notion of fear as Jack leaned in until their noses were inches apart. He had stopped crying, but his nose and cheeks were still tinted red and were getting redder by the second. His voice was hoarse over Maurice's apprehensive stutters.

"_Rubbish!_ Don't you see? He's weak! He's afraid of the beastie!"

"I-"

"The beastie!"

"It's-"

"Ralph is weak, he's afraid of the beastie on this island! He's afraid of the beastie in this forest! But us hunters go in the forest every day! We _live_ in the forest!"

"But he should be dead by now-"

"_No!_ I can feel it! I can feel that that scumbag is out there! _Out there!_ I just _know!_"

Maurice's stuttered had been beaten back down his throat. He tightly pursed his lips together and shook there silently, save for a few whimpers. Jack broke away from their intense stare and straightened his back to holler at everyone.

"_I_ care! _I_ hunt! Ralph can't hunt! That's why you all joined _my_ tribe, not his! I promised you food, I promised you protection and I promised you safety! Ralph wants to force you all to his side! If you join him, he'll just make you all work every day!"

Jack howled in a mocking voice.

"Work, work, work! You need the fire, the fire! Oh, the fire! Jack, you let the fire go out so you could feed the littluns; hunting's not important! Jack! Jack! What's important is the fire!"

His cracking voice elevated to the loudest he could manage.

"My tribe, does anyone want to join Ralph? _Anyone?_"

"_No!"_

The response was unanimous. A littlun clumsily stumbled forward from the vigor of the cheer and fell onto the ground, face-first into soot. He started having a fit as he coughed and hacked, inhaling to get air, but only to fill his lungs with the dust he was trying to get rid of. Little specks flew out of his mouth and twirled rapidly in the air as if in rejoice before being sucked back in by the desperate inhalation of the convulsing thing.

Everyone stared at the fit for a few minutes before Bill ran over and pulled him up. The littlun stood there still hacking, every cough causing him to spasm in a different direction. After the coughing finally subsided, the littlun stood there with moist eyes and an embarrassed blush.

Jack ignored him. Having received the answer he wanted, Jack's fit died down and his breathing returned to normal. He hesitated and recollected himself. After taking a few, trembling, deep breaths, he put away his knife and straightened up. He looked at the ground to avoid any more eye contact.

"Alright then. Set up a fire. We'll eat."

A group of littluns broke from their frozen, wide-eyed stances and cheered as they went around gathering firewood. Jack sat down on a fallen log and wiped his wet eyes with a dirty wrist. He took the spectacles hanging from his waist and handed them to Roger, who went to light the fire.

He sat there, staring blankly into space. His distraction was only disturbed when Roger handed him back the spectacles, which he fastened back on his waist. Jack readjusted his torn cap and took out his knife again. He portioned the meat, giving none to Roger, who had the piglet to eat, and sat back down. He didn't take any for himself; his mind was still set on Ralph. Roger got up from where he was sitting and took a sliced off a bit of meat from the sow's side and handed it to him. Jack took the meat reluctantly and began to nibble at it.

"You need it for strength."

He smiled, and Jack subtly returned it, his thoughts somewhere else.

They rested a bit, and when everyone had finished their meat, Jack stood up.

"Reform the line!"

They continued scouring the island, with Maurice slightly trailing behind, his eyes a little wider than usual.

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><p><em>Thanks for reading (unless you're just peeking at the end)!<em>

_Anyways, please review on small grammatical issues of story inconsistencies! I'm really nit picky, so I won't mind at all if you are, too. I'll take all constructive criticism positively and appreciate anyone who has the time to point out something wrong. If you do, I think I'll owe you like, half a cookie or something._


	3. Chapter 2: The Great Rock

_As you can see, I've changed some of the chapters. There's nothing major so far, it's just me shortening them so that you don't have to face a giant block of text every time you open a new chapter. Again, I'm taking some of PeculiarChemicalista's advice, and I figured that, while the text will still be the same amount, there'll just be more chapters to break things up. I was originally going to stick with Golding's chapter length and update every two weeks, but I figured, why not just do one chapter a week and make them shorter? Satiates appetites better._

_Nothing inappropriate here, so... begin!_

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><p>Ralph's stomach made a painful growl. When was the last time he ate? He began to scavenge around the cliffs, looking for food. It was a little while before he came to a rotten banana lying on jag below. He swooped downward and snatched it before coming back up to where he had been. It was bruised and soft in texture as he forced himself to swallow the mush. He licked the remains of the banana off the peel and continued to search the rocks.<p>

Besides the banana, Ralph didn't find anything else, and after searching a while, he scaled his way back up the rocks in hopes of finding better food in the forest. His hand grabbed the ledge of the cliff as he pulled himself up and tumbled forward into a mixture of grass and rock. He walked aimlessly after that, in a general direction away from the fort.

In the distance, he heard ululations coming towards him. He jumped into an alert stance and stood there for a while, his ears listening to the sound. After waiting and confirming that they were getting closer, he panicked. He turned his head to all directions, trying to search for a safe place to hide. But there was no thicket near; they had all been burned down.

Run? The only direction to run was towards the fort.

Jump to the cliff? He'd probably die this time.

Climb?

Ralph looked up and saw the branches of a burnt but still living tree. He scrambled up the trunk, not caring for the splinters that jabbed into his body from all around. He didn't climb very high, so as to not sway the trunks that grew thinner the closer it was to the top.

He settled on a branch very high up in the tree and sat very still. His arms clutched tightly to the trunk in a way that reminded him of a reassuring teddy bear. He could hear the footsteps of the savages beneath him and shut his eyes tight.

Don't look up.

Don't look up the tree.

He finally opened his eyes when he heard the footsteps stop directly underneath him. His long hair flopped past his forehead and obscured his view. He looked down and saw a savage inspecting the trunk beneath him. Its eyes were searching, but clueless. It hadn't seen Ralph yet. Its face paint had been smeared, the once tribal pattern now a smeared mess that faded a little on the savage's forehead and chin.

The savage stepped back two paces and began to slowly tilt his head up, examining every detail of the tree.

His eyes were on the lowest branch.

Then they were on the second branch.

Then they were on the branch below the one he was sitting on.

Ralph prayed to a god that had remained silent since the day he started thinking that his daddy would rescue him someday. He prayed that the savage hadn't seen him and tightened his grip on the trunk. The savage aimed his spear and thrust it at the branches with all his might. The spear flew past Ralph's arm, flinging off a bit of skin but thankfully drawing no blood. The splinter stung his arm, but it was a pain that was bearable. The savage below walked over to where his spear had landed and picked it up.

Ralph relaxed his grip a little on the trunk, only to tighten it ever so more when he felt a looming force near him. And this force had an astounding aura of hatred. The animalistic rage joined the presence of the first savage, and the second was overwhelmed by the sheer power of the first.

"Nope. No Ralph, else I woulda heard'im."

"Gimme that!"

Ralph heard an angry grunt and realized it was Jack's voice as the spear flew past him again, this time past his torso. Ralph pressed his face against the trunk to stifle an instinctive yelp of pain. The spear cut into his side, and it began to bleed profusely.

But the spear had already exited the leaves.

"See? No blood."

"Alright, then!"

There was some grumbling, but it slowly faded away along with the sound of footsteps.

Ralph sat there dumbfounded. He was shocked that he had managed to survive another close encounter with Merridew, and instead of being prideful in his ability to hide, he was more apprehensive and paranoid than ever now that he knew he was going run into the leader of the savages again. It was inevitable.

And Jack was obsessed with him.

After Ralph was sure they were out of sight, he slowly climbed down from the thin branches and carefully set his feet on the ground, careful as to not leave blood anywhere. He ran in the opposite direction as fast as he could in a sudden burst of speed, tripping here, stumbling there, but ultimately flying through the forest.

This was not like him.

No, this was not like him at all.

The Ralph before would've taken the conch and headed straight for castle rock, followed by Piggy, Samneric, and a crowd of innocent littluns. The Ralph before would've knocked some sense into Jack for killing Simon. He wouldn't have backed down, let alone flee immediately at the sound of Jack. He would've accused Jack in an acute sense of justice.

But that was all gone now, and Ralph didn't have time to hold his head in shame as the urge to survive overwhelmed his mind. Piggy was killed, Samneric were captured, and the littluns had already all joined Jack's tribe. Ralph began to tell himself that Simon's death was an accident. _It was dark. There was that-that bloody dance. There was lightning and thunder and rain. We was scared!_ Piggy's words were echoing in his head as he hurled through the forest.

He reached the sandy beach clutching his side and splashed a few steps into the water. The blood was pounding in his head as he stooped over to regain his breath. His stomach growled again, reminding him of his hunger.

Suddenly, he felt faint. The bleeding cut on his side had swelled a bit, but the lump wasn't enough to stop the blood from dripping out. His blood wasn't clotting fast enough. He toppled over, half of his face pressed into the shallow water.

Ralph laid there in a semi-conscious state for quite a while. His eyes were half-closed and his body barely cared about the shoreline waves that flowed past him, carrying his body a small distance each time.

He got up and tried to refocus his vision. He stood there blinking, then waded past the waves and stood in thigh-deep water. He bathed his wounds from the cliff and the spear, cringing a little at the salt water. He took off his shirt and held it open. It floated in the water outstretched.

He stood there, his back against the baking sun. An eternity seemed to pass, but his hunger never subsided.

Ralph felt something swim into his shirt. He immediately tied it shut against the struggling fish. Quickly, he ran to the shore, dumped the thing on the ground, and flopped down beside it. He didn't bother with his knife and tore away at the scales with his hand, voraciously gobbling down the flesh, bones, guts, and all.

But he was still hungry. He grabbed his wet, sandy shirt and prepared to catch another fish when a crab dug its way out of the sand near him. His eyes looked towards the sight, but his body had already pounced there, fighting the crab. Fresh cuts appeared, but the torn fingers were ignored as Ralph pried open the struggling crab and picked at the clumpy batches of orange roe. He picked at the insides of the crab and tried to obtain every sliver of meat, sometimes consuming a bit of the clear, plastic-like lining inside as well.

He buried the remains of the fish and the crab in the sand. Ralph got up and wandered, swaying from side to side in the heat of the glaring sun. He went past the long abandoned platform, past the burnt remains of shelters, past the pile of charred sticks where they tried to make a signal fire on the beach.

The sun was setting when he came upon a slanted rock that jutted out of the sand in a harsh manner. It was isolated and alone in its own stance of haughty confidence, adorned with bits of sand, crab shell and limestone. There was a ledge that was raised a few feet off the ground that was large enough to fit a small person. A small, thick bush of ferns battled for settlement close to the rock like loyal followers.

No so far away from the rock was a lagoon. It was quite noticeable, despite the haze of mirages and lack of focus in Ralph's eyesight. You could walk there in a hundred paces or so to drink the fresh water there.

Ralph would have gone to the lagoon to soothe his parched throat, but the power of the ever-watching sun had already sucked away the fuel inside his body, and he slumped down into the tangle of ferns. There was something that uncomfortably jutted out of the sand, and he reached back to pick it up. It was covered in clumps of dirt, but Ralph could just make out a defined shape. He tried picking at it with his fingernails, only to realize he barely had any out of his habit of biting. There were several scabs on his fingertips that had formed from biting down to the quick. Ralph had stopped caring about the pain. He barely noticed it.

He scraped it against the rock as some of the hard, dried up clumps rubbed off a little. The dirt stayed stubbornly wedged in the uneven surface of a thing. Ralph continued to pick at it in curiosity. He could barely keep his eyes open, but he still continued. Finally, after reopening some scabs on his fingers, the clump of dirt yielded a bit of marble whiteness.

It was a conch shell.

Ralph smiled for the first time in ages as he brushed his dirty mat of hair out of his eyes to closer examine the shell. It was too small to be blown properly, and Ralph didn't want to try either, in case the savages were still out there hunting for him. A large chunk had been chipped off the end meant for blowing on, rendering it useless. A few small bits of the shell rattled inside the beaten conch. The shell barely resembled a conch; in fact, it barely resembled a beat up conch. But it was a start. Small tears of joy formed in the corners of his eyes and cleaned his cheeks when they started dripping down.

Evening was coming, and soon after Ralph couldn't admire the broken shell under the moonlight. He slovenly rearranged the ferns to cover his skeletal figure and wearily nestled himself into the patch of ferns, safely out of view. Raising his knees to his chest while tightly clutching the conch close against his chest, he was still apprehensive about sleep, fearing the hunters, fearing Jack. A wave of paranoia had rushed over him long ago. The skin around his eyes was a deep plum from keeping his eyelids open for too long. As the night passed on, he fought a losing battle between his alertness and sleep. Finally, his eyelids betrayed him, and Ralph fell into a deep sleep, his ears perked to listen for others on the island.

Ralph was still wary of the hunters, and he woke in a sudden jerking motion whenever he thought he heard an ululation or the sound of footsteps. His eyelids stayed sealed shut, but his ears almost moved in the direction of where the noise came from. After a while, he fell into a dream state where he dreamed of the memories of a home so far away. He stopped jerking and began to sleep soundly.

Without any sudden movement, the patch of green soon blended with the sand under the moonlight, and Ralph slept under a moist black blanket of velvet, safe from even the endless stare of the gliding constellations.

The rain pounded on the island in a steady, intense drumbeat. The island thirstily welcomed it like a child to a warm bath as the rain scrubbed off the layer of soot and pushed it out to shore. The waves sighed as they reached out and pulled large clumps of ash out to sea. The pieces of shining onyx trailed in a shadow that cloaked the island. As the soot washed away, new seedlings sprouted from below, inhaled the breath of life and began to form buds. The sprouts stretched towards the sky as they drank the water that sank into the fresh, muddy earth.

Muddy puddles formed like mirrors as the island tried to forget what had been done and start anew. But there were stains that even the drowning of everything could not wash off, stains caused by the evil born in the youth of mankind. And there, in the ark of stone, was the band of savage beings crowded in a cave, waiting for the flooding to pass.

Thunder boomed as the island flooded for a night that passed slower than forty nights.

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><p><em>Thanks for reading my chapter. If you liked it, spread the word and review or something. Sharing is caring? I dunno. :D<em>


	4. Chapter 3: Lines on Shore

_Alright, Chapter 3 is finally done! I'm really sorry that I've been kinda inconsistent, but I've been loaded with boatloads of homework. :(_

_Warnings: There aren't really any things in here that are graphic beyond reason. No slash yet, and a tiny bit of blood. Nothing worth fainting from._

_Other notes: I introduce a bunch of OCs in this chapter. I hope you're fine with that, because otherwise I can't really get the story going. So yeah. Read on. All the characters in this chapter that were originally created by William Golding in Lord of the Flies belong to him. The rest are mine. But feel free to use them for your own stories and such._

_Anyways, let the story begin (continue?)._

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><p>Throughout the entire morning Ralph felt nauseous. He stumbled clumsily through the muddy sand and waded a few feet into shallow water. There, he was sick and managed to empty half the contents of his stomach. As the waves gradually washed away the stuff, he plopped himself down on the soft, mushy sand and stared blankly. There was nothing to do but scavenge for food and hide from Jack's tribe.<p>

He looked down at his scabby fingers and ran them along the dried-up, swollen cuts along the sides of his thighs and forearms. He figured he could use a bit of soap to wash away some germs and that soothing ointment his ma would always apply after every time he skinned a knee. He bent over to closely examine the especially infected scratch on his right thigh, near the knee. His long hair swished forward and obscured his close view of the cut.

Ralph couldn't stand that hair anymore. It was crawling with lice and overtaken by clumps of dirt and leaves. It hung past his shoulders and rested in front of the bottom of his chest. He could've been a filthy mermaid. He stood up and searched for his knife, which he had left back in the mess of ferns he had slept in. It was a little bent and worn down past the bevel and didn't serve much as anything but a simple wedge.

Ralph couldn't remember what had worn it down. After a bit of pondering, he simply assumed it was because of the shelters he had built, even though he was still bothered by the fact that he didn't know the exact answer. He sharpened it to the limits of his currently short patience against a smooth face on the Great Rock. He took the slovenly sharpened blade with one hand, clutched a lock of his hair with the other and ran the edge of the blade against the fibers, just above a tangle of leaves that Ralph had never been able to comb out with his fingers.

He worked the blade through the rest of his hair, taking care to cut it evenly with the first lock he sheared. After taking a while to perfect his hair to the best of his ability without a mirror, Ralph anxiously buried the pile of hair he produced deep into the sand and smoothed out the area. He swiftly climbed down to the lagoon to examine his new haircut in his reflection on the surface of the still lagoon. He frowned, unsatisfied with the mop on his head. Ralph then took his knife and trimmed the hairs that seemed out of place.

Occasionally he would look around to see if there were any savages that were nearing the boundaries of the forest on a pig chase, but most of the time he lost himself in a small frenzy of trimming his hair to perfect his shaggy hairstyle. After he spent the morning fixing his hair, he looked at his reflection in the lagoon and let go a small noise of approval at his hairdo, which closely resembled his hair back when he had first landed on the island. He also buried the wisps of hair he had left on the ground while trimming and went back to the Great Rock for an afternoon nap.

Ralph neatly rearranged the ferns to form a cozy nest which he settled in. He tied his slightly bloodstained shirt around his waist and pulled out some frayed strings from the tears in his shorts. He didn't know where his stockings had gone and became aware that only the minimally sufficient parts of his uniform were present on him. His shoes were replaced by thick callouses on the soles of his feet, his cufflinks had flown off during one of his more physical interactions with numerous rocks around the island and his sweater had ran off in a different direction long ago. His belt remained faithful at his side; he needed it more than ever now that his formerly handsome build was reduced to that of a starving orphan living on bread crusts and snow.

He brushed off the sand on his lower legs and feet and sat, resting his back against the rock. He shut his eyes tight and tried to fall asleep. There was that sticky aura of paranoia around him again, the feeling of eyes that could see him even past the ferns. But now that he felt comfortably cleaner, he simply brushed it off. It was as if succumbing to his anxiety and doing the tasks it asked of him had filled him with some sort of opium. He could finally relax now and began to recall distant memories of his warm cottage, the hot porridge and cozy bed. Yup, he was going to get rescued, and he was going to survive until then. Nothing could disturb this still state of peace, not even the frantic gnats that busily swarmed in the nest of ferns in curiosity at this new visitor.

Ralph soon fell fast asleep, the weakness from his ailing hunger becoming his sedative. He slept through the great thunder that resonated throughout the entire island, the acrid rain that boomed above and the arrival of aliens.

A pile of burning rubble sat in the sand. There was a long, sickle-shaped scar that trailed behind it. Pressure was slowly building inside the tanks that lay in the heap, and it promised an explosion; but the tide quickly rose and pacified the flames that engulfed the heap and cooled the melting metal. Then everything was still for a bit, as if the pile of scrap metal was surprised at its accidental landing.

The quiet ambience was finally interrupted as a foot kicked out a large sheet of metal from the pile with a soft grunt. A teenage boy kicked his way out of the pile of scrap metal from three feet high and hit the ground below in an uncomfortable plop. He scrambled back up and instinctively put quite a bit of distance between himself and the plane before slumping down and examining his burns in a doctoral fashion. The boy had straight, black hair and well-defined facial features, particularly his large, angular nose. His tan skin made him look like a gruff boy who had spent a day too many out horse-playing in the sun. His scars proved this to be true. He was a bit older than Samneric, but not quite at the age of Ralph. However, his hefty build and lean muscles made him handsome like Ralph when Ralph had first landed on the island, and he was also handsome in his own way. The gruff boy lacked the glimmer of innocence in his dark chocolate eyes.

After inspecting his burns, he figured he could stand them and ran back to the heap and started pulling away heavy sheets that the smaller children inside were too weak to shift. His arms worked quickly in a routinely manner and soon he had finished rescuing all the smaller children. The older boys of the group had by this time worked their way out of the heap as well.

The gruff boy strode to the shore and began disinfecting the worse of his burns as well as the bleeding cuts he had received. The wounds stung heavily in the salt water, but he clenched his teeth and continued with his procedure in silence. The smaller boys that he had assisted earlier, some who were also bleeding and burnt, gathered round his side in a ring and watched him. The gruff boy quickly looked up to inspect the devastated island and tore up his shirt into strips. He dressed his worse wounds quickly to prevent infection, as if he'd been practicing for this very moment.

A very young child, around seven or eight, saw what the gruff boy was doing and immediately understood the process. He waddled off to the shore to soak the large gash that had appeared on his right knee. It stung, and his eyes began to water, but the young, brown-haired child washed the swollen patch around the cut and wrapped it in a novice fashion with a torn-off patch of his own shirt.

Soon enough, every injured boy was following the young boy's lead in this procedure almost systematically in a line that stretched along the shore. It was quite a sight. A very young one, a bit chubby with long, blonde hair, was clumsily fumbling with a cloth around an awkwardly-placed cut on his forearm. He showed very little interest in it, and he looked as if he'd rather fall asleep. The gruff boy saw this and came over to help him wrap the unevenly torn shirt cloth. The sleepy boy simply sat still and stared off into space, yawning a bit after the gruff boy left to help others.

From afar a tall, frail boy about Ralph's age was watching these events unfurl. He was a handsome but slender boy with a sharp chin that jutted out and put a serious aura of intelligence around him. This made him look completely out of place despite the generic uniform he wore that matched all of the uniform on everyone else. He had managed to stay calm during the crash and had managed, if not weakly, to escape the heap unharmed. After studying the behavior of the gruff boy for a little while and seeing his charisma that had managed to get him plenty of followers, the slender boy looked to his feet and stared for a while, his irises quivering back and forth in calculating thought.

He briskly strode over to the gruff boy and gently tapped his bare shoulder. The gruff boy reluctantly turned from the littlun that he was tending to.

"Yes?"

The slender boy was not intimidated by the hoarse tone that escaped from the gruff boy. He cut straight to the topic of their conversation in a crafty voice.

"Want to be friends?"

The gruff boy furrowed his eyebrows in confusion at this sudden proposition. He looked at the slender boy and finished a knot on the squirming littlun. He turned around and fully faced the slender boy, giving him a good look. The slender boy actually made him shudder a bit, but he shrugged it off.

"Alright, then."

"Great. What is your name?"

"Ethan."

Ethan then turned around as another littlun in the crowd that swarmed around him stepped forward and showed a fresh scrape. He bent over again to tear a piece off of the stained shirt the littlun wore and began wrapping. The slender boy waited while lightly stamping his feet, hoping that the question would be returned. After an uncomfortable period of time, the slender boy squat down next to Ethan and recited the greeting he was taught from a very young age.

"I'm Acker. Livy Acker. Nice to meet you. Can I help you?"

"Livy?"

Ethan's voice had a hint of light-hearted mockery in it as he ignored Livy's offer to aid him.

"Ain't that a girl's name?"

Livy looked at his feet again as a soft blush swept over his cheeks at the mention of his distasteful name. He quietly whispered his name to himself and contorted his facial muscles in disdain as if he was taking his medicine. He tensed his thin eyebrows and looked around a bit hurt as the littluns began to giggle at his name.

"No it is not!"

"Yes it is!"

"Is not!"

"Is too!"

"It is_ not_ girly!"

"Livy, Livy Acker! Look'it that!"

"It-"

Livy cut himself short, finding no more need to embarrass himself any more. He abruptly stood up in a tense, agitated posture and prepared to walk away to where he had watched everything before.

"You shall call me Acker!"

"Livy!"

The crowd of littluns shouted back the embarrassing forename. Livy wanted to shout back at the top of his voice, but instead he looked back down at his feet and tried to regain his composure. He found it futile to argue against the stubborn crowd of injured littluns and stormed back to the tree he had leaned against earlier, cursing under his breath. Ethan turned back to continue wrapping up the littluns, feeling a sliver of guilt for the offense he had caused to Livy.

Two boys, a bit younger than Livy but much sturdier in build, walked to him and sat down.

"That was mighty mean, wasn't it?"

"Yeah, mighty mean."

They spoke in conjunction, agreeing with each other. One was tan and dark-haired like Ethan, but his hair was coarse and curled in a messy heap around his head. His shirt, torn from his violent attempts to escape the plane, revealed veiny arms, showing scars that only could've come from things much worse than just horseplay. The other did not look like his sibling despite their parallel speech. He was short for his age and much skinnier. He had a mess of thin, brown hair roosting on his scalp and his wide, hazel eyes didn't do much to compliment his hair.

"What's wrong with that name?"

"We oughta go teach'im a lesson!"

Livy was cheered up by their intentions to help him, but he didn't want to cause any fights.

"No need to cause any rumbles, guys. But thank you for that. What are your names?"

The wide-eyed boy answered first.

"Ken."

"Demarco."

"Acker, Livy Acker."

"Shucks, we knew _that_ already."

"No need to introduce ya-self, Acker!"

Livy smiled genuinely at the call of his surname.

"He's not a nice one, isn't he?"

"Mean, just mean. I oughta sock him in th'eye!"

"Bam bam!"

"An' those li'l kids! Those giggly, good-for-nothin' li'l kids!"

"Pow pow to them, too!"

"But ya didn't want us fightin'."

"Ah, who needs'ta fight that wimpy noodle! Look at him!"

"Helpin' the li'l kids like a mommy!"

"Ha ha! A mommy!"

"Wimpy noodle!"

"Miss Ethan!"

The three doubled over in laughter into the sand.

From a distance, Ethan cocked his ear at the ruckus and chose to ignore them. He still had a bunch of littluns to tend to.

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><p><em>Le gasp! A plane-load of OCs and a new plot! What's gonna happen next? I dunno. Herp derp.<em>

_Thanks for reading Chapter 3 of Beelzebub. Review, share, glomp. If you know any other LOTF fans, then PLEASE spread the word! I'd be so happy I'll share my rotting banana with you. :)_


	5. Chapter 4: Schoolboys and Savages

_Again, this is another chapter split. It was originally part of a really long Chapter 2, but I figured it'd be pretty well off on its own. So therefore, here ya go._

_Nothing that needs warning. So commence!_

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><p>"I'm hungry."<p>

A chubby littlun in front of Ethan rubbed his stomach as Ethan wrapped the bleeding cut around his ankle. The thought suddenly made everyone hungry, and immediately a few of the stronger littluns climbed the trees to get coconuts. The smaller ones ran around the few banana bushes, only to drop the rotten bananas back into the sand, pinching their noses in disgust.

Ethan finished dressing the scrape on the last littlun in line and stood up, scavenging the area for food. He took the coconut that one confused littlun presented to him and cracked it along a rock. An oddly-colored fluid spilled out, and he decided to taste it. His face immediately cringed in disgust at the warm, sour liquid. It was coconut water that seemed to have been rotten for a very long time. The unknowing littlun below him was hungrily reaching for the shell to get a taste of the meat, only to be brushed to a side.

"It's rotten. Can't eat this'un. You'll be sick."

Ethan tossed the shell into the waves as the littlun stared on the verge of tears, his hunger coming to him in a shooting pain. Ethan scanned the forest for food and saw few sources that weren't burnt down. He was a little fuddled by the ashes that covered the distance, but he kept searching along the shore and partially into the forest, the band of boys following him.

It was a while before he flopped down on a patch of dirt. It was well into the afternoon, and dusk was right around the corner. The boys behind him were all exhausted from treading the forest, and they had long given up, their hunger making them faint. Ethan looked around for a last time and, seeing no fresh food, he threw his hands up.

"Where can we get some food?"

"You could try hunting."

Ethan bolted up and spun to face the direction where the voice came from. Two trees parted as they revealed a dirty, red-headed child whose face was smeared with red and white war paint. The freckles that he used to have were gone, invisible under the dark tan that covered his body. On his left was another boy with black face paint that gave him raccoon eyes and a black patch around his mouth. His eyes were focused on Ethan and he clutched two spears, one sharped at both ends. As the red-headed boy stepped forward, a tribe of filthy, long-haired boys revealed themselves and gathered behind the red-headed boy.

Ethan wasn't disgusted at the grubbiness of these boys and their red-headed leader, but something about the raccoon-eyed boy made him uneasy. The fact that they all clutched spears didn't help, either. He looked back at the boys behind him, who were now standing up at this frightening sight. The tribe was buck naked, save for their loincloths, and they resembled bags of bone rather than boys, save for their leader and that raccoon-eyed boy.

"I'm Jack Merridew."

Ethan and Jack stared at each other for a while. He wasn't so sure he wanted to join Jack's tribe of savages, but he wasn't sure if he had any other choices to. Instead, he just stood there until Jack finally spoke up.

"It's really hard to hunt here. I'm the best, and I can help you. I've seen every inch of this island, and I'll tell you where you can find the most pigs."

He paused, waiting for a reply. Seeing that Ethan didn't have any intention of offering himself to the tribe, he continued.

"You could join my tribe. I'm chief, and I'll offer you protection, food and warmth."

Curiosity sparked in Ethan's mind.

"Protection? From what?"

"The beastie. I'm sure you didn't find out yet."

Jack pointed a finger with a claw-like nail at the end towards a mountain off in the distance.

"It lives there, the beastie. It's got claws and it's got scary teeth and it's really big! But don't worry. If you join my tribe, we'll protect you from it. When we hunt pigs, we offer their heads to it so it won't eat us!"

Ken and Demarco murmured to each other in approval at this notion. They had already believed Jack's words in the midst of skeptical littluns who hadn't seen the beast.

"So, I think you should join our tribe."

"I don't know…."

"Well, what else is there to do? C'mon, there's no point in being stubborn about it."

"I mean,-"

"What? What is it about us that makes you not want to join us?"

"Germs!"

A littlun behind Ethan cried out. A few of the boys around him giggled, only to be cut short by the sound of Jack stabbing his knife into a tree. They jumped in their spots and immediately paid attention to him as he spoke in a menacingly stern voice.

"You _will_join my tribe. You will! There is nothing else to do! There's no one else on the island but us! You're gonna get eaten by the beastie if you don't join us. So, are you gonna join, or are you gonna get eaten?"

This terrified a few of the littluns and made the band uneasy. There was an angry silence for a few moments, but Ethan still refused to give in to this savage chief. Jack's face turned visibly redder under his faded war paint.

"Fine! So you won't join us, huh? Well, then, lemme tell ya somethin' else. There isn't enough food for the both of us! That's right, we burned the island. There ain't enough pigs, so if ya don't join us, we don't need you on this island!"

At the last word, Roger grinned. Ethan was about to accept their threat, seeing as there was nothing else to do-

"Stop!"

Everyone turned to see a skinny, fair boy push his way through the forest, excessively panting. He was covered with fresh dirt, but he had looked as if he had just taken a quick bath. The fair boy's hair was relatively neat and clean, and it lacked the tangle of leaves like the boys in the tribe. A torn white shirt was tied around a pair of shorts and a knife belt. He looked like he would've been very handsome if he had more meat on his bones, but he still gave off an appealing charisma. He finished making his way towards them and yawned, his sudden awakening from the sound of Livy's ridicule earlier still plaguing him with fatigue. He leaned on a tree and accusingly glared at Jack.

"They are savages! They're dangerous! They'll kill you!"

Jack opened his mouth to protest, but Ralph interrupted him before he could make excuses.

"They've done it already. They're dirty, rowdy and they'll never help you get rescued! This island is no fun. It was, but not anymore."

"You-"

"The beastie! Oh, it'll kill you alright."

"You!"

"I hate the beastie! But I hate these beastie-worshipping savages even more!"

"You're still alive?"

It was the only thing Jack could get past his lips. They all just stood there, Ethan, Jack and Ralph. After a while, Jack howled back.

"So _what_ if we give sacrifices to the beastie? We wanna live!"

"You wanted to sacrifice _me_!"

"We couldn't find more pigs!"

"You had all the pigs you needed!"

"Well, you can't hunt!"

"I'm not a savage!"

"I've got followers!"

"I've got _sanity!_"

Ralph stepped back at this last word. He wasn't even sure if could even apply to him.

Standing close, Jack looked ready to wrestle him, and while he'd won in the past, he wasn't so sure now. Jack looked healthy under his cloak of dirt, and his savage rage was bound to fuel him. Jack growled between clenched teeth.

"You ain't got followers."

"He does now."

Ethan stepped forward and shook hands with a surprised Ralph. Livy looked up from where he was sitting and briskly walked to where Ethan was standing, a bit startled at this sudden offer. Without much time to think, he rambled a bit to concur with Ethan's words.

"Y-yes. Followers. Except we will not be a dirty tribe, but rather, a group of friends. We are going to be civilized. Uh, sane."

Ralph recovered from his stun and shifted his glance at Jack with a confident smile.

"You've got followers, sure. I've got friends, now. We're not just going to hunt and have fun; we're going to work to keep civilized. And that means a signal fire. That means _we're_ going to get rescued."

He held up the broken conch for all to see. Many of the tribe's boys stared at it wide-eyed, babbling in confusion.

"What is that?"

"Is that a conch?"

"How'd he get that?"

"It's a ghost conch!"

Ralph had tied a bit of rope around it and now refastened it to his waist. He turned and headed towards the beach as Jack, defeated, led his tribe towards Castle Rock.

"C'mon."

With the invisible boundary lines established, the island had been split. Ralph grinned at his new batch of followers, no, friends. However, a new fear rumbled inside of him as he nervously chewed on a finger. Jack was going to hunt them down. They were going to fight. There was going to be war.

Ralph glanced over his shoulder to catch another look at Jack, hoping to see a back covered with war paint and a mass of red hair. He saw Jack looking back.

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><p><em>Le gasp! Dun dun dun! I know these first few chapters have been kinda clunky, but I'm focusing on getting new content in, so I won't have time to make major re-writes for now. I'll definitely correct grammar and structure mistakes that go herp derp in the night, but nothing too big. Maybe if I (ever) finish this fic, I'll restructure the story chapter by chapter.<em>

_So share, review and uh... what else is there to do on this site? If you wanna, you can PM me for a request in the story plot (pairings, twists, etc.) and I might incorporate it the next time I hit a writing block._

_Thanks for reading, and seeya later!_


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